


Worlds

by Antartique



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AUs with no explanation, Angst, Gen, Heroes' Relics backstory AU, Kidnapping, Soulmates, Two Byleths AU, Zombie Apocalypse, whumptober prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-11-15 12:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20865896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antartique/pseuds/Antartique
Summary: Whump-tober 2019, but they each take place in a standalone AU.1: Miklan and Sylvain go missing few months before the Tragedy.4: “The thing about zombies,” Annette said, “is that they slow down in the cold.”6: Zanado still burns three days after.7. Everyone always picks his other half.11. Not that it matters anymore. Sylvain is dead, after all.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1: “Shaky hands”. It did not end up quite as shaky as I wanted, but well... I guess Sylvain is just always shaking? Also... why is... it so long...

Miklan and Sylvain go missing few months before the Tragedy. 

This is a fact, even if they -they meaning Dimitri, Ingrid and Felix himself- did not _ know _ they went missing until months later. Many, many months later, long after search parties had been called back and border patrols had been warned off, when the secret had finally been revealed to the court; when Margrave Gautier, with all the feelings of an uncarved stone, had knelt before Regent Rufus and Prince Dimitri and asked for forgiveness.

_ Your sons are missing, what are you doing_, Felix had wanted to yell, back then, but the grief of losing his own family had still been too raw, too new for him to be out there in public. He had been up in one of the balconies with Ingrid, listening to the audience as they clutched at each other, trembling, wishing they could be down there with Dimitri.

They had lost Glenn, and now Sylvain and Miklan (who was trash, but he was still _ theirs_) had apparently been lost to them for way longer, and they had _ not known_. No one had told them. No one had _ bothered _ to bring the news to them, until that day, when Margrave Gautier begged for forgiveness for losing the _ Lance of Ruin _ -not his sons, no, _ the Lance. _

As this happened, Margravine Gautier stood to the side, regal and proud as always, not a single muscle out of place in her empty expression. She stood with her greatsword as a soldier would, her elegant dress at odds with everything else about her. Did she care? Had she cared that her sons went missing, or had she just been troubled by the inconvenience of bearing more children, of having to stay out of the battlefield for longer? 

Does it matter?

Three events marked the before and after, for Felix. 

Before, when everything was well, Glenn was alive, when his best friend was sane and Sylvain was around, when he could take Ingrid’s hand and call her a sister; before, when he still had a father who cared, even if his way of caring was through gentle words on paper. And, after. After, when nothing is right, when Glenn is dead and buried, when Dimitri has been replaced by a monster wearing his skin, when Ingrid holds back frustrated tears with each letter she reads, when Sylvain is just _gone_; after, when he no longer has a father, not even in the distance as he did before.

Three events: the Tragedy of Duscur, the announcement of Sylvain’s disappearance, and the rebellion at Mateus. The loss of his brother -and sister, even if she is still alive, the loss of his friend, the loss of Dimitri. The three of them are glued to his memories as if playing in repeat, constantly in the back of his mind, as the fire that both drove him forward and held him back.

And so, Felix does not cry anymore. He forces himself to grow, to become stronger. He stops training in magic, focuses on the sword. He stops writing long letters to his father to leave in his office, stops expecting responses with his breakfast on the weekends. He stops trying to reason with Dimitri, leaves him to Dedue, and after a bit stops trying to reason with Ingrid and _her_ terrible habits. He joins her instead, and they both join Dimitri, and then Dedue joins them, all of them throwing themselves into arduous training for their chosen paths. 

Soon, they join Garreg Mach with one less student than they were supposed to. They get the new Professor, so they are at a disadvantage in every sense, but somehow they are still the most advanced class in practicals and doing well enough in theory. They had some problems, sure, like Ashe’s father, or the attack on the Monastery, but other than that?

It is alright. 

Felix had almost forgotten about the life he had left behind, about the Gautier drama, about his distant father. He had almost forgotten the turmoil Faerghus was at the time the three of them left, had almost learned to ignore the nagging in the back of his head that said, _something will go wrong, very soon._

Well, it did go wrong. It is going wrong, so very wrong.

Felix watches in feigned disinterest as the last of the band of bandits is tied up and pulled away, her protests and struggles ignored by the knight who is holding her up. She kicks him, and he grabs her leg with one single hand, shifts her and wraps his arm around both of her legs. She tries to stab him with one of the many hidden daggers they had not been able to take from her, and the knight lets her fruitlessly attack his armour, almost amused. She is light, probably no older than fifteen, nimble and with a vicious edge on her strikes that made her opponents almost lose their calm -Felix would know, he was the one to fight her.

She is also not Sylvain.

Professor Byleth comes closer from where they were questioning Miklan Gautier, the very leader of this band of misfits, and hadn’t _that_ been a surprise? That he, who had been missing for _years_ , suddenly appeared back in Faerghus, followed by a group of _children_, because that is what they _were_, fighters or not, and decided to attack some merchants? That _Miklan_, the one who could somehow hide away until night fell if it meant he would win hide-and-seek, had lacked foresight to not attack in a pattern, that he had been found and tracked by the Kingdom and considered a low enough threat to send _students_ after him?

Felix would find it offensive in his stead, if he wasn’t fighting to hold back tears. If he hadn’t been fighting to hold back tears for days, for years now.

“He refuses to cooperate,” Byleth says, very quiet as always. They look conflicted, as they had been since they got this mission, as they had been since they had seen the target. “The fort is our best choice, will you come with me?”

“I will bring Ingrid.” He nods, because what else can he do?

They go get Ingrid, who is busy cooing over the Srengese warhorse one of Miklan’s companions had been on with Ashe. That, the thick furs and high necks of the clothes they were wearing, and the rough language of the children were telling enough of where they had been all this time, which makes the fact that they had even _found _Miklan at all even more shocking.

Why had he come back?

Ashe comes along when they go to the fort. It isn’t a great thing, just a run down fort built back when Gautier was still changing hands between Sreng and what had been the Empire back then. It is an eerie place, especially with the wind whistling through the cracks and the frost crawling up the walls, debris carelessly thrown to the sides along with bones of the forgotten (Ingrid makes a sign at them). Overall, it is exactly the kind of place any Gautier would feel at home in: dark and cold.

There is a shuffle near a corner, and Byleth aims their torch that way. The fire ball floats gently around them, chasing the shadows away, revealing Sylvain.

Or what seems to be Sylvain. 

He is taller -of course he is, it has been years, but not bigger in any other way. His hair is long, one side completely shaved off to reveal a missing ear, wound an ugly red and oozing _black_. It spreads like cracks on glass, thin _disgusting_ veins pulsing with rot, digging into Sylvain’s neck and shoulder and arm like muscle pulled inside out. His whole arm is gone, replaced by black armor, thick scales and spikes that end in a clawed hand, where it joins with the Lance of Ruin as if they were one.

(A Demonic Beast, but it is human. A human, but it is a Beast.)

“_Go away._” Sylvain says, voice soft and low and _chilling_. “_Leave us alone__._”

He holds the Lance at them like he means to attack them, but his hands are shaking around it -his whole body is shaking, like any second now he will collapse and _ give up. _

No.

It has been _ years_, and Felix has finally found one of the people he is missing. One of the people he has held tears back for years. He might not get the others back, but _this one_?

This one, he is not leaving alone.


	2. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4: “The thing about zombies,” Annette said, “is that they slow down in the cold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2: <strike>Explosion</strike> Claude not cooperating.
> 
> 3: <strike>Delirium</strike> Has spoilers for somniare
> 
> Can I write something not-Sylvain? Well, I can, but as you see... Throws them to the bottom of the list...

It is the evening of the fourth day, and Sylvain runs inventory of what is left. As the sun sets -it has been setting for quite a long time, and will rise once more within four or five hours, giving him very little productivity time-, and the storm howls out there, he can see the snow piled outside slowly settle down as the monsters lay down for the night.

He wants to sleep too. He is tired. He is not sure if he has slept well since this whole thing started. But, there are things to do, like taking this hot mug of coffee to Ashe, Leonie and _ Hubert_.

The _ thing _ began in southern Adrestria. The timeline is not clear -Claude tried to keep a calendar at first, but quickly gave up the further north they went. Sylvain knows it has been around two months, but hasn’t been keeping track-, but when Garreg Mach was hit panicked reports had reached them by dying birds. The Monastery had been evacuated, some going to Leicester, some others towards western Faerghus.

The smart ones went north.

“The thing about zombies,” Annette said, holding her finger up like the expert she is, “is that they slow down in the cold.”

So here they are. Gautier, the coldest place in the continent. It was a nice welcome home, especially since all his school friends had come along. They had taken a detour to Fhirdiad, to house Dominic and the School of Sorcery to gather _ all the knowledge _ on Necromancy in the world, then to Fraldarius for supplies, and then Gautier.

His father had just looked at him from the wall tower with a frown, then at Dimitri with an even worse frown, and then just let them inside like the wonderful father he was. Sylvain had taken a long, long stroll of a few hours with him to explain the situation while everyone else set up their anti-undead fortress, with a group of soldiers of course. It was a long conversation, full of father-son bonding, amicable teasing and death threats.

And then they had been attacked.

That had been four days ago.

Another thing about zombies in the snow is that they are slow, but also really strong. They get harder, you see, and also easy to assemble, like wooden blocks, and they really weren’t expecting a lich so early in the zombie apocalypse Faerghus edition. It had shown up, been unbeatable, and then gone to sleep when night fell. By then all their soldiers who had died in the battle had been creeping slowly towards the few survivors, so they had gone back.

Not a huge loss. The man who shall remain unnamed could have died off illness for all Sylvain cares, and it would have been the same.

So here he is, four days later, bringing coffee to their watching guard. Claude had taken their best fliers eastwards, to confirm the situation in Leicester (and Almyra if possible), and they had been waiting for news ever since. Edelgard had been mighty helpful in that regard, refusing to give up Petra until she got slapped by Dorothea, and had that not been a funny sight to see, but then she had willingly put Hubert who is scared of heights on tower duty and, yeah, they are getting better.

Everyone is getting along. Somehow. Even Dimitri has been pacing less in anxious helpfulness and talking more to people, even _ Felix _ and _ Bernadetta _ have been more open lately, it truly shows how crisis brings people together. Byleth often ends up staring at the wall in panic and it takes all of the combined might of Dedue, Raphael and Caspar to get them to move, it is cute.

Not Sylvain. Sylvain isn’t getting along with people, he _hates _this place, he wants to move to Sreng. Not that he can, because… well, this is his home, but if he could go stand at the stormwall for a few hours and yell very loudly until his throat goes raw, he would be happy.

His limbs feel stiff.

“Good night fellow night dwellers,” he greets the tower crew, trying to act cheerful even as he feels the cold try to shut him down. He is _ so tired_, but here he is, because he is a good man. Ingrid would be proud. “I bring the daily caffeine.”

“It better be more than just _ daily,_” Hubert snatches his designated mug from the tray and downs it, somehow not burning himself in the process. He pours another mug, and this one he cradles in his hands as he glares at the sun like it offended him personally. It probably did. Sylvain is surprised Hubert is still being cooperative about this whole thing.

Sylvain just smiles. He is trying to keep up the mood in this whole adventure and Hubert is not going to bring him down. Neither is Ashe, who looks about as haunted as Dimitri does after a nightmare, or- no, Leonie is okay. They might have been shooting targets, that would explain why the other two look so… beaten.

Huh. Is that fire in the distance?

“When are we changing shifts?” Ashe rubs at his eyes -Goddess, he looks so tired, and the evening-night tower shift is probably one of the most taxing of them, even when night is a Gautier night. All they are doing is… waiting. “Can we get dinner yet…”

“I want goat!” Leonie gives back her mug and quickly goes back to the pile of furs she had been hiding under. You can barely see her under there, it is amazing she can even move.

“You will get what we are all getting.”

They still have rations for some more weeks, but that does not mean that they can just eat whatever they want. Rationing is hard, especially with people like Raphael and Byleth around. Luckily, all he has to do is make sure they have the supplies, not cook them, so he doesn’t worry too much about it.

He finds Lysithea at the foot of the stairs, a book in her hands. She looks him over, then goes back to her book, and that is all the interaction he is getting from her for now.

“Did you sleep at all? ” Bernadetta and Dedue are on cooking duty today, so Felix is guarding the kitchen. Sylvain hands him the tray and ruffles his hair. It is undone, falling over his shoulders in waves he usually works so carefully to hide from everyone else, and he-

“I did, I did.” He hasn’t, but he can’t say that.

“And did you eat?”

Sylvain thinks about the meal he ended up giving to Raphael around midday, and about the dried meat still neatly packed by what should be his bedroll (what, had you thought they were at Castle Gautier? Hah, no, they had boarded up in a fortress a bit south of it, people had started complaining about the cold _ far too early _ for Sylvain’s liking). Still, he nods, because Felix.

“You are looking delicious today, though-“

He gets hit for his troubles, and ends up fleeing for his life while laughing.

It all goes back to hell near the time for the guard shift. Ashe comes running, face pale and eyes wet with angry tears, and by the time he is before the professor -their sort-of leader in this situation-, everyone has woken up and gathered around.

“Humans,” he spits out, an almost feral sound that makes everyone else tense. “They shot at Leonie- She is okay, Linhardt got her, but they are clearly not friendly.”

Which is how they end up ready for battle, mages and archers above the tower, melee fighters around it. They have maybe half an hour before the sun begins to rise and the undead stir awake, by which time they will need to return inside, but for now they have to deal with their living enemies first.

Sylvain twirls his lance around. He is going solo today, stuck between Dimitri-and-Felix and Edelgard-and-Ferdinand, the two available power duos (there are two more, Byleth-and-Linhardt and Claude-and-Lorenz, but no mages and no Claude today). Maybe it is because his usual partner, Lysithea, is up in the tower: usually, the mages would also be down here, as magic was way better at against the zombies than melee weapons, and they were usually on protection duty, but against humans the rules change a bit. Mostly because humans can counter tactics, and zombies can’t.

And so it begins.

This battle is very different from usual, with spells raining from above instead of coming from around them. Today, he can’t feel Lysithea’s warm dark magic around him pinpointing her position, so every move feels like walking in a minefield, like he will fall and freeze and finally black out after holding on for so long. He still _ knows _ she is there, from the flashes of dark and purple around him.

The world fades into sounds and colors. There are lots of colors. Mostly white, metal too, and red. How many people were there again? Ah, who cares, there is blue and black next to him and it is familiar, comforting, even if one blur is constantly yelling at the other.

And then there is metal, coming down down _down and he doesn’t think so get Felix out-_

There is a scream. The world slowly comes back to focus. 

Felix is there. So is Dimitri. Behind them he can see Ferdinand and Edelgard and the tower and the sky, still black, the sun will come out soon why are they not back inside? They have to go back already, right, instead here they are frozen in the middle of the snow and Felix looks so heartbroken? 

Sylvain looks behind him. Oh, there is a man behind him, huge and probably strong and holding what seems to be an axe. There is blood in the axe. And blood in Sylvain’s mouth. And blood at his knees- when did he fall? He can feel Lysithea’s magic already working to fix the worst of the damage to his back, he shouldn’t have fallen, it is warm and _ dark _ and dangerously illegal-

Did he black out? Is this it?

He reaches for the axe, he is so _ slow , _ everything looks like it is in slow motion, through a filter of a dozen of glass windows. The man’s eyes widen. He looks scared, he drops the axe. Good for him? Sylvain still throws it at his head. Crash, bye, he doesn’t even look delicious.

He tries to stand, but he is frozen. He is _ slow _ . This might just be it, that is it, _ I lasted four whole days. Felix looks like he is going to cry, he hasn’t looked like that in years, no Felix, don’t cry, it just makes me want to bite you more, _ and Dimitri is pulling him away with shadows in his eyes.

He will probably not be welcomed back into the fortress again, of course not, why would he be, ha, maybe Lysithea will explain, will she be labelled a traitor? 

She had been looking for a cure.

She had worked so hard.

And yet-

Can he give in now? Can he lose his hold on himself?

Ah, the sun will come out soon. 

He is _ so tired_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my shoulder got injured, because I'm a fool and can't take care of myself. Here is friday's chapter which I just got done with.


	3. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6: Zanado still burns three days after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5: <strike>Gunpoint</strike> Claude not cooperating, once again...
> 
> Warning for... Relics' origin spoilers, I guess? Heavy headcanon ahead. It's also not good.

Zanado still burns from Runa’s last stand.

He had gone out laughing, an ugly hysterical and desperate laugh that each of them had hated in many different ways: Areadbhar, because it bothered her head, Freikugel, because she just hated Runa, Cichol, because it bothered Cethleann. Aegis himself hates the sound because he had gotten to hear it just twice in his sheltered life: once, when Thyrsus had fallen, what seemed like years ago, and now, when Runa himself had gone out like fire under water, like the crack on earth he lived in just closed its maws around his small body and crushed him to never heal.

Zanado still burns three days after Runa rained death and ruin on their enemies, and here Aegis sits, hiding behind a wall, holding Kuraha’s pale hand as she fades away from the stalactite piercing her in half.

“I apologize, brother,” she said, her very last words before she closed her eyes: “I shall leave you all alone now.”

Aegis refuses to cry. He is one of the last of his kin, with Seiros courting her human, and Macuil, Indech, Cichol and Cethleann hanging close by her side. He never did understand the relation between those four, and Cethleann as well, but he does not need to think about it: in the end, they had made their choice, and it had been a good choice for them.

It is much too sad, then, that it had not been a good choice for everyone else.

Their kind has been slowly dying out for ages now, first with their very own mother and Areadbhar and Caduceus, Assal and Begalta and those who fell to the taint in the air. The _ continent _ was dying, the contamination of the outside world seeping into their lungs as humanity spread further and further.

They should have gone underground and above the mountains the first year they felt their breathing grow harder, their lungs grow weaker. They should have returned to their origins and left the world to humans as it should have been, but they had been _ fools_. They had trusted, some of them had adapted, and now they would be no more.

Aegis hopes that, when Seiros returns, she does not find their blood on the ground, still fresh and spreading across the cracks towards the lower chambers. He hopes that when she returns, she will not go on a mad quest for vengeance that will end the remaining members of their people. He hopes she can find peace, however peace is meant to look like.

He hears footsteps behind him and, reluctantly, lets go of Kuraha’s hand. May she rest in the earth unlike their siblings, wherever they might have been taken. May she rest in the earth, where she belongs.

Aegis steps out of his hiding spot and, with a roar, shifts.

He defends their home for three nights and three days, and falls at midday.

He was the last wall, the Shield, the very last defense of their people. He was born and made and raised inside these walls, never leaving, never once seeing the land their beautiful mother had blessed with her gifts. He had been one of the youngest, and yet inside this small city of theirs he had ruled with an iron fist, as every stone and wall and door had been made of him and for him.

He always wanted to see the world, though. Even when his mission was to guard, he had always wanted to be out there, to watch people live, to roam the land like Moralta had done. Granted, his brother had died in the end, a stupid end for a stupid man, but still a better end than Aegis’s own.

He finds it very funny that the first time he breaks his vows is the day of his death.

He clutches the earth below him. A single flower bloom between his claws, remaining even in his more human form. It is beautiful, like Kuraha’s eyes when she smiled at him, telling him a joke from the outside he could never understand yet made her laugh so much. It is tainted in blood now, but if he is lucky it might live to see another day.

Those people are talking around him. He does not understand what they say, and does not want to understand in any way. He had seen them carting Kuraha away while they fought, and he had tried to defend her, but he had not been in time. At least she has passed already and will not have to suffer anymore,

He waits for his death, but it never comes.

A man lifts him by the hair and it _ hurts so much _ he sobs, he is afraid, why won’t they just kill him. They already have his family what more do they _ want- _

Something clicks around his neck.

They put a collar on him, metal, huge, attached to chains and to his hands and feet. He tries to bite at it but can only scream when lightning runs through his body -so defenseless in this form, but unable to turn back-, his family’s own skill hurting him to the very bone. Another of the _ things _ kicks his side, digging a foot into Aegis’s already cracked ribs.

The chains move, and Aegis goes with them.

No. No _ no n__o._ No no no_no**noNO NO N O** _

he hopes his howl reaches that he will rip out his throat that Seiros hears_wherever she is why didn't they just_

** _kill _ ** _him_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so Runa: Lance of Ruin; Kuraha: Crusher; the Sacred Weapons are made in a ritual with 'blood willingly offered' and Areadbhar is a special case. I _did_ say these were standalone AUs.


	4. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7\. Everyone always picks his other half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7\. Isolation. Going with the idea that the Byleth you don't chose stays in the Holy Tomb (which is true).

Everyone always picks his other half.

Now, don’t get him wrong. He does not mind this. Him, or her, or them, it matters not: history follows a set course independent of who is at the center of it. Him, or her, or them both, Fódlan’s history is set in stone: someone wins, the continent pretends to be unified for some time, then collapses on itself to burn in the fires of war once more. So, he does not care, not really, just that it is very boring to always be stuck in here.

Here, being the Holy Tomb. Their resting space from back when they were none, then one, then none again, and now that they are two it is the resting place only to one of them. More often than not, it is him, the one waiting on the throne for his other half to return. Through the madness of the raging lion, to the vengeance of the soaring eagle, to the escape of the discontented deer, he waits.

Maybe it is because the fates believe in her more. 

She is able to bond with all three of the main characters of this story, bond with them from beginning to end, while he is… not. He is relegated to watching a beloved leave him behind two out of three times, maybe even less.

Everyone always picks his other half.

It is unfair, at times. They are the same person: them and him and her and them, both Sothis in their own way, yet most of the time he is the one left behind waiting.

Waiting.

Years turn to decades turn to centuries and he is waiting.

He wonders, at times, if she even remembers he exists. If she sees his form whenever she comes here, just waiting by their throne like he has always done. If she hesitates, thinking if she should offer a hand, bring him outside.

He hasn’t seen the sky in a long, long time.

Yet people always chose his other half.

A loud gasp echoes around the chamber as she falls before the throne, a gaping hole in her chest from where a blade pierced her through. She lays on the cold stone floor, recovering her breath, eyes blind to everything but her own pain.

“Ah, How nice of you to visit.”

She cares not for his words as she curses and turns back time, as she always does when she comes here. He feels the pain of her wounds as she returns to her land of the living and wars, he feels each single cut and bruise transfer to his skin before they vanish into the whirlwind of time.

Ah, how unfair life is. He wishes he could be out there, maybe helping her, maybe just watching. Maybe he will take a few years to look at the sun next time he is chosen, if he ever is. If he even remembers the dark, dark years stuck in this empty stone palace.

He feels so alone.

He tries to remember the touch of the sun, or the touch of people, or even just the voice of those he cared for so deeply through timeline after timeline, yet he cannot. He tries to remember if there was ever a time when darkness was not his eternal companion, yet again, he cannot.

He is all alone in here, for many years now and many years to come.

For now, he will wait until history ends. He will recall his relics, his tools, his Death Knight -maybe this time they will find a way to save him?- and await for the next game to begin. Maybe next time he will be the one leading the troops instead of pulling strings?

Ah, but he is so very lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I imply that Byleth is the one behind TWSITD? Yes, yes I did. 
> 
> Also these are coming slowly bc I have no will to write lately. I have half-written stuff for everything but, well, finishing them is being hard because... well. My country is kind of collapsing like a jenga tower. I'll be grateful if you could leave a word or two for me. Or tip me-- i mean, no, you don't have to do that. Come talk to me @ ReunLuet in twitter.


	5. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11\. Not that it matters anymore. Sylvain is dead, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11\. Stitches. Also known as the Worst Soulmate AU you have ever read, probably. Warnings for uuh mild gore, character death... needles?
> 
> I give up posting these in order. I will be done in January, probably. Also this whole collection is like 70% Sylvain, 30% everyone else, because Bias. One day I will post my Best Boy Trio Loop In Time For Their Perfect Ending fic and you will all die of how good my boys are.

Finding Sylvain after the battle takes a while, even following the tug_pull_tug at his heart from the soul bond. The battle had been chaos and Felix had lost sight of him and Erhi in it, but now that it is over he can finally go look for them again. He can only hope that they are just as he left them and not in any worse condition, he could not tolerate it if they were in any worse condition.

It takes a while, but he does find them. Erhi, still saddled and gently nuzzling at her master’s chest. Sylvain, still on the ground, one arm cradled against his chest and one leg bent an odd way. His throat is still slit open, but he does not bleed anymore, the very last drop of blood having fallen a short while ago, leaving behind an ugly scab that will probably scar badly.

Not that it matters anymore. Sylvain is dead, after all.

Still, as Felix gathers him up in his arms, wrapped carefully in the red cape he had taken from one Imperial soldier or another, Sylvain blinks at him, slow and lazy. Felix just hushes him, some vague reassuring words and a soft kiss to his forehead, setting his precious cargo atop Erhi before getting on himself and riding back to camp.

“Are you alright?” Mercedes is the first person who meets him when he returns, hands already glowing with familiar white magic that rushes through his body in a millisecond. He doesn’t feel any better, still numb and empty, the world still moving slowly as if seen through stained glass or maybe underwater. He nods at her still, because it is what she expects, and holds Sylvain closer to himself.

“Do you-“ Even his voice sounds as if he is speaking from underwater, or maybe through a deadly cut that severed his vocal cords. “Do you have a needle? That you won’t be using anymore?”

“...We have hook needles, yes.” Like she read his mind, Mercedes guides him through tents and makeshift quarters, taking a less-populated road towards the medical tent. She peeks inside before letting him in, quickly tying up the entrance with a knot even Ashe would take a while to undo. “Felix, if this is anything illegal-“

“Above legalities,” he replies, putting Sylvain down on the closest cot and unwrapping him. He seems to have fallen asleep in the trip here, eyes closed and breathing slow and steady, though an ugly sound comes from his throat whenever he breathes out. Like bubbling, like blood is trying to come out but it refuses to, like the last sound he made after apologizing in his arms before he took his last conscious breath. His arm is still there, but the leg has bent into an even more awkward angle, and Felix clenches his teeth at the phantom pain of thinking about setting it back in place.

Mercedes just makes a soft, really soft sound, and gathers up the supplies needed. Just some thread, a needle and alcohol -it isn’t like Sylvain is aware enough to feel pain, and the echo is not strong enough to reach Felix right now (maybe before, in the past, it had been, but he had stopped feeling it ages ago. Thanks, Sylvain). She helps him set the leg back in place first, the ugly _ crack _ making both of them wince in sympathy, but again, Sylvain barely reacts.

“They tend to rot easily,” she says as she holds a ball of light above Sylvain’s shoulder, simply assisting as Felix sews the arm back in place with a skill he has never trained with and never really planned to use. “And we are still at war, Felix-“

“I know, I know.” Of course he knows. His family, and the Blaiddyd as well, were well known for being cursed with soulmates every generation. Glenn hadn’t had one, fortunately for him, and he had been allowed to rest in peace, but both of them still had gotten extensive lectures on embalming and proper burials and what not. “He can stay here for now, I will take him home once we win.”

_ Once they win__. _When they win, because they are going to win. That _ woman _ had taken Sylvain from them and she is going to pay. She had taken his _ soulmate_, had made them try to kill each other in the battlefield, this is all her fault.

In a way, Felix had always suspected it was Sylvain. The echoes of pain he felt when he was a child were too close, too real, like they were right beside him for so long they rebounded from one to the other and amplified each other to intolerable levels, until one day they suddenly stopped. One day, when he had woken up freezing, crying in the middle of the night, feeling like the walls were closing in and like he was going to fall asleep any second- and then nothing. The bond had severed, or rather muted itself past hundred of walls and huge menacing monsters, muted itself so much Felix felt, for the very first time since his birth, alone.

_ Soulmates are the curse of the Goddess__, _his father had said once, when he still spoke to him as ‘son’ and not as ‘Felix’. They had been cursed to always seek and never be whole until they found them, to feel their pain as if their own, to share everything from their life to their deaths. A curse, for one could not die while the other remained: the one who died first would stay in a barely human state, breathing and seeing yet unable to walk or talk or _live_, for as long as the other remained.

They did not appear for everyone, yet each of the great families cursed with them had developed their own defense mechanisms. The Blaiddyd could hunt their soulmate like a wolf hunts its prey. The Fraldarius and the Dominic had mastered the art of keeping each other alive even in death through white or dark magic. Each their own, usually kept secret.

The Gautier’s were no secret. They prided themselves on being as strong as the ancient ice that surrounded their home, of being the wall at the border. They prided themselves of being the first line of defense against the outside, and also the first line of defense in their own heads,

The Gautier _ severed _ their bonds as soon as they could.

So, Felix is not surprised his is Sylvain, just as he is not surprised he has to stitch him together after his death.

He is not surprised, yet it still hurts.

He threads the needle again while Mercedes carefully cleans the wound at Sylvain’s throat. It is an ugly wound, the only way he could stop Sylvain from killing him first. Felix is not ready to die, not now that he has recovered his King and his Kingdom, not now that he can see the future.

A future with Sylvain as a doll who can’t move, can’t speak, and only blinks at him, but still a future. A future with Sylvain sitting by the window and looking at storms, unable to go out and feel them on his own.

Still a better future than a future without Sylvain.

Felix sighs, presses a kiss to his soulmate’s cheek, and goes to stitch his throat back together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Country is still burning. Yay. Might head back to hometown this week tho so, shrug I guess? Also I'm working on so many things I'm so tired, but at least it keeps me busy. Please keep me busy? Come talk to me @ ReunLuet in Twt.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate everything about this, and monthly challenges, and also I might be doing polls about character focus? Come bother me in twitter @ ReunLuet
> 
> Also I might continue... some AUs, if there is enough interest. Only if. Whatever.


End file.
